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NESA - Mobile Training Team

NATIONAL EMERGENCY SERVICES ACADEMY- MOBILE TRAINING TEAM

The National Emergency Services Academy – Mobile Training Team (NESA-MTT) is an extension of the annual NESA program, providing nation-wide Emergency Services (ES) certification and other curriculums. It is intended to extend the academic reach and excellence in training demonstrated through NESA, a proven record of rigor and quality education programs. It is not a replacement for any Federally delivered or State Training Officer (STO)/Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) provided Emergency Management training programs. In addition, the NESA-MTT has been chosen by both FEMA and the Air Force to support their training needs. This includes the training of Air Force Total Force members from the Active, Reserve, and Guard components.

Civil Air Patrol’s (CAP) NESA program was founded in 1996 as a means for increasing the knowledge and professionalism of CAP members in Incident Management, Aircrew, and Ground Team ES response. During its first two years all the classes were delivered in Virginia. By 1998 the program had moved to Camp Atterbury, IN, providing unsurpassed ES professional development in multiple incident command, public information, communications, aircrew, ground team, safety, chaplain, and other disciplines.

Since its fledgling days, the curriculum at Camp Atterbury has grown from two two-week field SAR classes to now nearly 30 separate courses. During 2017-2018, CAP introduced the NESA- MTT off-campus extension program with pilot deliveries in Arizona, Texas, and New Jersey.

In 2019, the first formally recognized NESA-MTT courses were offered in 16 states across the nation (including Alaska). Since first piloted, over 3,000 CAP members from all CAP Wings have been trained. More units are on the schedule for 2022; please see the schedule link to the left.

The mission of the NESA-MTT program is to institute an out-reach capability to all regions (including overseas units); while still providing a high-level of professional instruction, and fidelity in course delivery excellence; at a much lower cost to all CAP members and the overall organizational enterprise. Again, it is not a replacement for locally provided or STO AHJ programs. Those should be the “first-stop” for regional training opportunities.

Most courses are provided to CAP by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA); approved by the National Headquarters Director of Operations (the FEMA recognized Authority Having Jurisdiction over CAP training programs). Other curriculums and CAP home-grown to meet special mission requirements. You can find the list and descriptions of all courses to the left under NESA-MTT Courses. Many of these have received collegiate certification and are transferable to college credit. See college credit link to the left.

The NESA-MTT is an extension of the proven NESA pedagogy model; an outreach program extending the opportunities of ES training nation-wide, while reducing overall costs of training and education to the CAP enterprise. All CAP instructors are selected by the National Headquarters and exceed the certification/experience requirements of DHS/FEMA; offering quality curriculum; with operational experience and lessons learned from actual disaster/emergency and search & rescue missions.

* COVID – 19 Note:  Since the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and National Headquarters prescribed protective measures for CAP members, to minimize exposure to COVID infections, the NESA-MTT has leveraged this challenge into an opportunity for the employment of virtual delivery of many courses. As a result, many courses are being provided in a virtual synchronous classroom environment. No modification of curriculums, curtailment of class time, or change in course objectives have been made and the students have received the same quality of education & training. This does not mean we will be going to be exclusively dependent on virtual deliveries; we will consider it one of the tools in our academic toolbox for use when (preferred) face to face deliveries are not prudent. 

For more information and questions on the NESA-MTT program, and how to request regional deliveries, contact Dr. Bob Ditch HQ CAP/DOSI at (480) 298-2603 or rditch@cap.gov.

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